Archipelago of Souls (Gregory Day, Picador)

Archipelago of Souls is a deeply felt novel about a returned soldier, Wesley Cross, as he tries to reconcile the horrors of World War II with the vicissitudes of daily life. He seeks solace on the remote King Island off the coast of Tasmania. Wesley is seen as a hero of the underground resistance on German-occupied Crete, but he is also a man haunted by what he has witnessed, what he has done, the disappearance of his brother and the moral ambiguities of war. On King Island he meets Leonie Fermoy, a woman with her own private nightmares, and together they find a delicate path of solace in a post-war world. At the heart of this novel is the gentle love story between Wes and Leonie as they anchor each other in a morally devastated world. Where this novel really shines, however, is in its loving depiction of nature and landscape. Gregory Day’s descriptions of King Island and Crete are so evocative. He brings these remote environments to life as they form the backdrop to Wes’ story. Following his previous novels The Patron Saint of Eels and The Grand Hotel, this new book from Day will appeal to fans of Carrie Tiffany’s Mateship with Birds and Stephen Daisley’s Traitor. 

Sarina Gale is a freelance writer and part-time bookseller at the Sun Bookshop in Yarraville